It take a bit to get there, but this book is great. It's campy and fully of eye-rolling ridiculous humor, but it's cute and funny. I am aware I am not the direct audience for this book. It's YA. I can think of a variety of teens whom I teach who will love this book. I thought I knew exactly what the plot twist was going to be and was quite surprised that I wasn't on point. Klune does a good job with that. He hints to the twist and allows the reader to assume things but then surprises them. My only issue with the book is that the exposition and set up takes so long to arrive. I feel like this book could be about 100-150 pages shorter. I'm not sure most readers will stick with it long enough to get to the good stuff. By the time I got half way through I couldn't put it down. The cliff hanger at the end keeps me wanting more. It's well worth the read, but be aware the first ten chapters or so are a lot of set up that pays off later but seems more than a little obnoxious in the initial reading.
The book reads very much like a fan fic which is not my personal favorite type of reading. It's interesting though. I also greatly appreciate the variety of characters and the depth to which they're portrayed. Having queer characters, queer characters of color, neuro divergent characters that's not something very common. It was definitely great to read. I also really appreciated the depth of portrayal for the father figure who is a cop and how much that affects not only his life but the life of his family. I think those honest portrayals are important. It's well worth the read. If you're like me though I wouldn't have finished this book if I hadn't received it as an ARC copy from BookishFirst. So give it a chance and push through the exposition.
The book reads very much like a fan fic which is not my personal favorite type of reading. It's interesting though. I also greatly appreciate the variety of characters and the depth to which they're portrayed. Having queer characters, queer characters of color, neuro divergent characters that's not something very common. It was definitely great to read. I also really appreciated the depth of portrayal for the father figure who is a cop and how much that affects not only his life but the life of his family. I think those honest portrayals are important. It's well worth the read. If you're like me though I wouldn't have finished this book if I hadn't received it as an ARC copy from BookishFirst. So give it a chance and push through the exposition.